Organizations, including businesses, governments and educational institutions, increasingly rely on computer networks to share and exchange information. A computer network typically comprises a plurality of interconnected entities. An entity may consist of any device, such as a host or server, that sources (i.e., transmits) and/or receives messages. A common type of computer network is a local area network (“LAN”) which typically refers to a privately owned network within a single building or campus. In many instances, several LANs may be interconnected by point-to-point links, microwave transceivers, satellite hook-ups, etc. to form a wide area network (“WAN”) or intranet that may span an entire city, country or continent. An organization employing multiple intranets, moreover, may interconnect them through the Internet. Remote users may also utilize the Internet to contact and exchange information with the organization's intranet.
One or more intermediate network devices are often used to couple LANs together and allow the corresponding entities to exchange information. For example, a bridge may be used to provide a “bridging” function between two or more LANs or a switch may be utilized to provide a “switching” function for transferring information between a plurality of LANS. A router is often used to interconnect LANs executing different LAN standards, to interconnect two or more intranets and/or to provide connectivity to the Internet. Routers typically provide higher level functionality than bridges or switches.
In many computer networks, applications or processes are distributed across numerous workstations and servers. For example, due to the complexity of many computer networks, network management applications have been developed to assist administrators in the configuration of their networks. These network management applications also facilitate the identification and correction of faults, and assist administrators in maintaining a high level of network performance. Examples of network management applications include HP OpenView® from Hewlett-Packard Co. of Palo Alto, Calif. and NetView 6000 from International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., each of which provide a suite of applications and processes for collecting, storing and displaying network information. These network management applications are typically distributed across several workstations or servers within the network, in part, because their processor and memory requirements often exceed the capabilities of a single workstation or server. Each instance of these applications, moreover, may be responsible for a different area or region of the respective computer network.
FIG. 1 is a highly schematic representation of a network management application distributed across multiple entities of a computer network 100. The network 100 includes a plurality of network devices 102–110, which may be bridges, switches, routers, servers, hosts, etc. As described below, new devices, such as new device 112 may be subsequently added to the network 100. The network 100 further includes a series of workstations 114–128 at which instances of the network management application are running. In particular, workstation 114 may be running two instances of a polling process 130, 132 that have been configured to poll devices 102 and 104, and device 106, respectively. A polling process polls devices in order to obtain a particular set of information. Workstation 116 may be running an event receiver process 134 that is configured to trap or receive events generated by device 108. Workstation 118 may be running another polling process 136 which has been configured to poll device 110. As described below, a new network management process 138 may subsequently be initialized at workstation 118.
The distributed network management application may further include two instances of an intermediary data collection process 140, 142 running at workstations 120, 122, respectively. Intermediate data collection processes 140, 142 are configured to collect the information acquired by multiple processes, such as processes 130–138 running at workstations 114–118. The distributed network management application also includes applications for presenting data acquired from the network 100 to network administrators.
More specifically, running at each workstation 124–128 is an instance of a user interface application 144–148, respectively. The user interface applications 144–148 receive information from the intermediary data collection processes 140 and 142 and display it, typically through a dedicated, windows-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) (not shown), to a network administrator. Each user interface application 144–148 typically reads a corresponding configuration file 150–154, respectively, upon start-up or opening at the respective workstation 124–128. The configuration files 150–154, among other things, identify the particular intermediary data collection applications 140, 142, network management processes (e.g., pollers, event receives, etc.) and devices 102–112 from which the respective user interface applications 144–148 are to receive information, and may direct applications to open corresponding windows.
When a new device or new type of device, such as new device 112 is added to the network 100, the settings at one or more of the network management application processes, such as polling process 136, must be up-dated to incorporate the new device 112. In order to change the settings at polling process 136, it must typically be shut-down, new software must be loaded and the polling process 136 re-started. In addition, in order to make the polling information acquired from the new device 112 available to one or more user interface applications, such as application 148, the identity of this new device 112 must be added to the corresponding configuration file 154. Simply adding new device 112 to configuration file 154 does not, however, make user interface application 148 aware of that device 112, since application 148 only reads its configuration file 154 at start-up. Accordingly, user interface application 148 must be shut-down, new software loaded and then re-started in order for it to “learn” of the existence of the new device 112, and generate a corresponding window. Similarly, if a new management process, such as new process 138, is added to the distributed network management application, one or more of the configuration files 150–154 must be up-dated with information regarding this new process 138. As described above, the corresponding user interface application 144–148 must also be shut-down, up-dated and re-started in order for it to learn of the existence of the new process 138.
This closing, installation of new software and then re-starting of various instances of network management and other distributed applications following every change in configuration or settings is time-consuming, error prone and annoying to most administrators. In addition, during the time that the respective application or process is shut-down, the network or the relevant region thereof is not being managed. As a result, errors or faults that occur while the application or process is closed may go un-detected, causing even greater network problems. Computer networks, moreover, are constantly being changed and up-dated with the addition and removal of LANs, network devices, links, etc, in addition to the running of new software applications and the up-dating of current software applications. Only by closing, up-dating and re-starting the relevant applications and/or processes can these changes be accommodated by the network.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for automatically reporting changes to a computer network. It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for dynamically up-dating or modifying configuration or other files.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system and method for dynamically modifying the settings of applications and processes.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a system and method for changing or modifying the settings of network devices.